Sanhedrin 139

13:
The second item in the catechism of our mishnah is not really any different. It is easy to state categorically that there will be no resurrection (however understood) for those who deny that the Torah is from heaven; it is more problematic to perceive a consensus in our classical sources as to the catechismal meaning of the concept of "Torah from Heaven". And here, once again, it seems that the confusion is caused by Rambam, and again in his commentary on this very mishnah.

14:
When it comes to amplifying the implications of our mishnah the Gemara [Sanhedrin 99a] simply quotes a series of baraitot. (The Gemara dates from the period of the Amoraïm, 200-500 CE, whereas a baraita is a source from the period immediately preceding, the era of the creation of the Mishnah, considered by the Amoraïm to be more authoritative.) The baraitot seem to imply that there is a biblical source for the teaching of our mishnah:

This may be an unrelated question, but I've wondered for a while about the term karet. I believe it is used in several cases in the Tora. In every case does it mean what you've described? And is there no possibility of teshuva for these offenses?

I respond:

There is no sin so great that it cannot be atoned for by sincere resentence. We have already noted that even those executed by a human court are not denied their "share in the World to Come" if their death was preceded by sincere repentance. What Rambam does say (in Mishneh Torah, Laws on Repentance) is that the crimes of certain people are so heinous that if they do not repent in time God will intervene and keep them on their chosen path until they reach their own destruction unrepentant. This is how he (Rambam) explains the hardening of Pharaoh's heart by God in the Exodus story.

Ed Frankel writes concerning the concept of resurrection:

Several years ago working at the Ramah camps a colleague gave a new explanation of teĥiyat hametim that made sense to him. He saw it as a poetic term akin in some measure to the substance of Modeh Ani that we recite each time we wake in the morning. He went on to say that he saw teĥiyat hametim as God who resurrects those who are as good as dead. His example came from real life. He had fallen asleep at the wheel of his car and went off the road. Somehow his foot came off the gas and the incline stopped the car safely while he dozed. He realized when he awoke what had happened and was henceforth able to say the bracha in the amidah with renewed fervor.

I respond:

I would have thought that Ed's colleague would have told this anecdote in order to bolster the concept of hashgaĥah perati, that God "watches out" for every single individual. The anecdote is, of course, "far out" from the rabbinic point of view as an example of teĥiyyat ha-metim. As regards the concept of teĥiyyat ha-metim in the second berakhah of the Amidah I have heard an interpretation that approaches the idea of "God who resurrects those who are as good as dead". This second berakhah of the Amidah is termed gevurot, which might be rendered into English as "Divine Power". In this berakhah the immense power of the Deity is focused on two topics. These topics are seen by the Rabbinic mind as being intertwined, different aspects of the same phenomenon. Our modern sensibilities, having been nurtured in a different mindset, would probably see these two aspects as being discrete rather than connected. This berakhah describes God's power as being manifested in the weather and in the resurrection of the dead. Perhaps the rabbinic concept will become more apparent if we think of this berakhah as affirming God as the ultimate Arbiter of Life and Death. In the agricultural economy of Eretz-Israel in Biblical and Talmudic times the falling of the rain at the appropriate time (and, of course, its not falling at inappropriate times) were quite literally matters of life and death. In our comparatively more sophisticated times (?), every winter now we in Israel are gripped by the fear that this year would be a year of drought, and even when rain does fall the agonizing question that dominates the weather reports always boils down to "by how many centimetres has the Sea of Kinneret, our National Reservoir, risen above the imaginary 'red line'?" We can now understand the comment of a famous sage, reported in the Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Ta'anit 63d] that "the rains falling at the appropriate time are welcome as [being] the resurrection of the dead". Without them there can be no life and death is inevitable. Therefore, in this second berakhah, when we celebrate the Deity as "causing the wind to blow and the rain to fall" this is no childish innocence: this is God as Arbiter of Life and Death, Wielder of the Ultimate and most Supreme Power. It thus becomes apparent that the other element that is intertwined with the weather in this berakhah, the resurrection of the dead, is not really so discrete from it.

Shabbat Shalom to everybody.